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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 4:38:17 AM

happypervert

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quote:

What the hells a libary anyway?

I think it's what them yankees call the toilet because they're so literate they keep a couple of magazines in there.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 5:12:27 AM

Terance

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As someone who moved to Georgia from NYC and has lived in Atlanta and Athens, GA; I'll add my two cents.

In the North East it seemed to me that you had a fairly high overall level of literacy, that is to say if you were in the city you'ld be surrounded by fairly literate folks, and if you drove out fifty miles in any direction there would still be a fairly high level of education.

In contrast, Georgia has islands of education. We've basically got Atlanta, Athens and a corridor between them. Leave that and you're in the country. You might have trouble understanding what people are saying out there. Nice people, but their range of knowledge is, shall we say limited? When you get tired of talking about automechanical repair, church gossip and Jesus, you need to run into the city for deeper conversations.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 5:26:50 AM

subrob1967

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It's funny watching arrogant Nor-Easters rip on Southerners due to profiling.

Mass is full of arrogant assholes (even more so now that they have winning sports teams) who's annunciation is worse than most of the Southerners I've ever met, & who think Bean-town is the shit... Who the hell would be proud of a nickname like Bean-town, anyway? Reminds me of passing gas.

And you forgot to mention St. Louis is higher than both Boston & Atlanta, not bad for a town built on alcoholic beverages.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 5:30:32 AM

SeeksOnlyOne

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Terance

As someone who moved to Georgia from NYC and has lived in Atlanta and Athens, GA; I'll add my two cents.

In the North East it seemed to me that you had a fairly high overall level of literacy, that is to say if you were in the city you'ld be surrounded by fairly literate folks, and if you drove out fifty miles in any direction there would still be a fairly high level of education.

In contrast, Georgia has islands of education. We've basically got Atlanta, Athens and a corridor between them. Leave that and you're in the country. You might have trouble understanding what people are saying out there. Nice people, but their range of knowledge is, shall we say limited? When you get tired of talking about automechanical repair, church gossip and Jesus, you need to run into the city for deeper conversations.

Terance

as someone raised in the metro atlanta area, i have to disagree.......but im too dumb to write a decent argument to someone as smart as you are..........

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 5:36:25 AM

Terance

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Hey subrob, okay, I'll give you arrogant. Nor-Easters tend towards arrogance when they come down here.

However, I wouldn't say that my views are based on profiling. You see, I actually live in the country, about 20 minutes from Athens. I love my neighbors, good people, like I said. However, I was talking from experience about their conversations being limited to automechanics, gossip and Jesus.

In fairness I should mention that there is a strange phenomena I've noticed. I'll be out in the middle of nowhere and run across a bunch of really interesting, well-read people; generally interspersed in a community of rather plain folks.

Terance

PS I've heard good things about St. Louis, nice goth community out there, isn't there?

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Most boring U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 5:38:35 AM

LadyEllen

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Residents of Minneapolis and Seattle are the most bored, according to results from a new survey released today of the most boring American cities.

The survey focused on 69 U.S. cities with populations of 250,000 or above. Jack Miller of Central Connecticut State University chose six key indicators to rank boredom. These included newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.

Overall, the top 10 most bored (where there's nothing to do but read) cities included:

1—Minneapolis, Minn.
2—Seattle, Wash.
3—St. Paul, Minn.
4—Denver, Colo.
5—Washington, D.C.
6—St. Louis, Mo.
7—San Francisco, Calif.
8—Atlanta, Ga.
9—Pittsburgh, Pa.
10—Boston, Mass.

E

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RE: Most boring U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 5:53:04 AM

mnottertail

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Ole hitched up his buckboard and went sparking with Lena in Richville, Minnesota........

As they plodded thru the snowbanks of the frozen tundras of the rural countryside, and after way more time than Lena was a-wanting, Ole put his hand on Lena's knee..........

She exclaimed, Uff Da!!! Ole!!! You can go farder den dat!!!!!

So he drove that sumbitch all the way to Minneapolis.

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RE: Most boring U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 6:05:32 AM

caitlyn

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Professor Miller's study also concluded, that nine out of ten people, think that where they live, is better than where everyone else lives.

My guess is that this study was paid for with Popeye's tax dollars.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 6:17:31 AM

mefisto69

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All things considered, that study is a joke. A Masters degtree -now- from a US university is the intillectual equivalent of a high school diploma from 30 years ago. That's the way the conservatives designed it and destroyed public education after the short lived "cultural revolution" here. Yes...... they WILL deny it until they're blue in the face, but- the competence level of college students is extremely low and text books have been dumbed down accordingly.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 6:32:24 AM

caitlyn

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I forgot to add, that Dr. Miller's report also concluded that eighty-seven percent of older people think they were better, brighter and more educated ... than young people are today.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 6:36:37 AM

OrionTheWolf

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Atlanta might as well be a seperate state from Georgia. Many people there are very well educated, especially in the Virginia Highlands area, as there are 3 good universities just in that area. I fly frequently between Atlanta and Boston, and have not noticed a significant difference between the education of those in either city, at least from just casual conversation.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster

Atlanta is more literate than Boston? Puh-leazze.

There's something wrong with that study.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 6:57:09 AM

TheHeretic

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I didn't see LA listed on that top 10. Big freakin' suprise there. Oh well. I'm used to being in the minority.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 10:24:54 AM

Lordandmaster

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Ah yes, if Northerners are less than overwhelmed by the level of literacy in the South, it MUST be because they're bigoted assholes.

Overall, I have to agree with Terance. Yes, there are universities in Atlanta. I am aware of that. But what about OUTSIDE the universities? I don't find Atlanta to be a city with an extraordinary emphasis on literacy and education. I find it a pretty yuppy city populated by professionals with fairly mainstream goals and world-views. I don't exactly hear people talking about Chaucer in Peachtree Plaza or whatever the fuck it's called. And besides, it's not as though Georgia Tech holds a candle to the line-up of universities in Boston. Boston has the greatest conglomeration of universities in the world. Let's see now...Harvard, MIT, Boston University, UMass Boston, Boston College, Brandeis. Ever heard of any of them? And are we including places like Tufts and Wellesley too?

quote:

ORIGINAL: subrob1967

It's funny watching arrogant Nor-Easters rip on Southerners due to profiling.

< Message edited by Lordandmaster -- 12/28/2007 10:25:20 AM >

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 10:31:06 AM

stef

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quote:

ORIGINAL: subrob1967

Mass is full of arrogant assholes (even more so now that they have winning sports teams) who's annunciation is worse than most of the Southerners I've ever met

Hey, at least we know how to spell enunciation.

~stef

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 10:40:53 AM

EvilGenie

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~FR~

The problem with polls and even advanced statistics is that we need to remember they are all taken from a random (or sometimes not) limited number sampling of people and/or resources. This may not apply so much to this thread though you see an ad that says 1 in 3 women will get cervical cancer. Well, you cannot simply line up all of the women on a given street, point to every 3rd woman and say with any miniscule degree of certainty, you will get cervical cancer. Stats and polls simply do not function in that way.

Many other factors play into these things and every one of them cannot be counted upon to be present. in fact, rarely are more than 7 points used; and 7 is most commonly used with major medical research studies though the average is somewhere around 3-4.

So, numbers can be very misleading. My point here is not to argue the basis for the most literate city but to demonstrate a point. I have run into many statistics ranters in my life whose only basis for a discssion is to keep tossing out stats all day. They cannot be relied upon due to the random and limited nature of them. Part of a point? Okay. All of the point? No way as you need more data available to make a point other than stats.

**End Tutorial**

Is a tutorial a rant? You decide. I don't feel particularly rant-ish today. Though I am bored and tired enough to have written this.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 11:48:50 AM

caitlyn

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It's probably a matter of perspective.

Having visited your part of the country several times, it's hard not to notice how rude people seem to be, on average. It's not that uncommon to see fans in northern cities, boo injured players on the other team, while they are taken off the field ... or notice how Detroit seems to have riots when they win an NBA championship, while San Antonio has big parties. A few years ago, I attended a football game in Columbus, between Ohio State and Texas. We needed a police escort to get out of the stadium, and even some of the cops were very rude. You would just never see that in Austin, case in point I attended a game the very next season with the same two teams in Austin, and other than some harmless trash talking, there was nothing at all upsetting.

I think it's probably truthful to say that both the north and south have a good percentage of enlightened people, and a large measure of ignorant assholes. It's equally true to say that many southern people have a hard time accepting the self-proclaimed intellectual and cultural superiority of the north, given the examples cited in the paragraph above.

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RE: Most boring U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 12:24:58 PM

popeye1250

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quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

Professor Miller's study also concluded, that nine out of ten people, think that where they live, is better than where everyone else lives.

My guess is that this study was paid for with Popeye's tax dollars.

Yeah, how could we even EXIST without these "studies?"

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 3:24:26 PM

Lordandmaster

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It's cute to me how the thread has degenerated into a North vs. South squabble, and the defenders of the South are starting to take the line of "OK, well, literacy is debatable, but Northerners don't behave as well as we do." The study was about literacy, not rudeness. Literacy and politeness have nothing to do with each other. You can be ignorant and polite, ignorant and rude, literate and polite, and literate and rude.

Besides, I have a hard time basing general regional comparisons like this on caitlyn's bad experience a few years ago at a football game in Ohio.

The four most literate cities in the U.S., in my personal and allegedly biased opinion, are (in no particular order): Boston, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco. Minneapolis and Chicago must be up there somewhere too. Portland, Oregon, is fantastic, but it's probably too small to be considered a city. Montreal and Toronto would both rank pretty high too, but, alas, they're in Canada.

quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

Having visited your part of the country several times, it's hard not to notice how rude people seem to be, on average. It's not that uncommon to see fans in northern cities, boo injured players on the other team, while they are taken off the field ... or notice how Detroit seems to have riots when they win an NBA championship, while San Antonio has big parties. A few years ago, I attended a football game in Columbus, between Ohio State and Texas. We needed a police escort to get out of the stadium, and even some of the cops were very rude. You would just never see that in Austin, case in point I attended a game the very next season with the same two teams in Austin, and other than some harmless trash talking, there was nothing at all upsetting.

I think it's probably truthful to say that both the north and south have a good percentage of enlightened people, and a large measure of ignorant assholes. It's equally true to say that many southern people have a hard time accepting the self-proclaimed intellectual and cultural superiority of the north, given the examples cited in the paragraph above.

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 3:28:11 PM

juliaoceania

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What I have noticed is that the most literate cities tend to be many of the most liberal ones...

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RE: Most literate U.S. cities - 12/28/2007 4:19:42 PM

LadyEllen

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What's most funny about this, is that in fact there isn't a single literate American - and so this study must be considered totally relative.

I mean, missing the "u" out of so many words? Honestly, it really isn't that difficult you know?

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